Dan Bongino has come up with a knock-your-socks-off theory about why Flynn's December 29, 2016, telephone call with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak didn't need unmasking.  He also offers a surprising twist on the charging papers against Flynn, something that may expose the DOJ's con on the court.

A lot of people noticed something interesting in the newly released list showing Obama-era people unmasking Flynn communications: No one unmasked Flynn's call with Kislyak.  There were no unmaskings between December 28 and January 4.  The next unmasking, on January 5, took place after Comey had admitted that he already knew about the Kislyak call and after Obama had been briefed about the call.

Andrew McCarthy believes that the call didn't need to be unmasked because the CIA, not the FBI, spied on Flynn.  Unlike the FBI, the CIA is not subject to FISA laws.  Instead, it spies on people outside the U.S. — and Flynn was in the Dominican Republic when he had the call with Kislyak.

That's an excellent theory, but here's an equally intriguing one from Bongino:

Bongino explains that there are three ways for the FBI to spy on Americans: first, start a criminal investigation and seek a court order.  Second, make an application to the FISA court, as the FBI did with Carter Page.  Third, request an unmasking identifying Americans involved in captured communications with a foreigner.

Flynn's phone call with Kislyak doesn't meet those three metrics: there was no criminal investigation, no FISA request, and no unmasking.

Bongino notes that there is one other way to spy on someone:  Under FISA, the president can request that the FBI spy on a foreign person in America, provided that the attorney general signs off, saying the spying will not implicate an American citizen.  Assume, then, that Obama and Lynch ordered the FBI to spy on Kislyak.

That still doesn't answer, though, how Obama and Co. managed to zero in on Flynn's call with Kislyak.  After all, as with any FISA spying, the captured transcripts aren't supposed to name American citizens.  They're just called "Unidentified Person."  How did the Obama team find the Flynn phone call?

Bongino thinks there was a setup.  Three weeks before leaving office, on December 29, Obama suddenly took the dramatic step of expelling 35 Russian diplomats and imposing sanctions on Russia.  He knew that Kislyak would immediately get on the phone with Trump's incoming national security adviser — that is, Flynn — to find out what Trump intended to do three weeks hence.

That's exactly what Kislyak did.  The twist here is that, as Obama and Co. knew, Flynn wasn't in the U.S.  He was vacationing in the Dominican Republic.  It's unlikely that Kislyak made more than one call to the Dominican Republic during this crucial time frame.

All Obama had to do was ask to see a call on the 29th from Kislyak to the Dominican Republic.  No one would need to do unmasking.  Obama and Co. would know that the "Unidentified Person" in the call with Kislyak could only be Flynn.  Mission accomplished.

The second intriguing idea is one that Bongino relays from a variety of people on Twitter.  They noted a discrepancy between the charging documents against Flynn for making false statements to the FBI and the heavily revised 302 that the FBI finally released.

In the charging document, the DOJ accuses Flynn of lying to the FBI agents about things he said to Kislyak in connection with "sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day."  However, if you look at revised the 302 — which was the best version of the document that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page could create — you see that the FBI agents never asked Flynn about sanctions. 

The agents discussed only "the expulsion of Russian diplomats or closing of Russian properties in response to Russian hacking activities surrounding the election."  They asked Flynn if he recalled "any conversation with KISLYAK in which the expulsions were discussed."  Flynn explained that he did not know about the "Persona Non-Grata (PNG) action" until the media reported it.  And again, the agents ask if Flynn talked to Kislyak about "the incoming administration's position about the expulsions."  According to the 302, the agents never mentioned sanctions, which were separate from, and in addition to, the expulsions.

So here's the question Bongino asks: how could Flynn have lied about sanctions, which is the crime he's accused of under the charging papers, if the agents never asked him?

Flynn, after seeing the FBI threaten his son and after receiving bad advice from his attorneys and not realizing they were compromised, took a plea bargain.  It was a bad bargain because the whole thing was a setup.  It's time for justice to be done.